


His Winter Boy

by snibnoom



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Myungbin week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15583839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snibnoom/pseuds/snibnoom
Summary: Myungjun read the poem carefully, clutching the sides of the sketchbook as if someone was going to rip it from his hands. At the bottom of the page was another name, this one short and written only slightly neater than the one at the top.Bin.





	His Winter Boy

**Author's Note:**

> And so [myungbin week](https://fy-myungbin.tumblr.com/post/176383105048/myungbin-week-2018) begins with _daffodils_.

It started in February. Myungjun sat next to him on the bus, not a word spoken between them as the vehicle rattled its way down the uneven road. There was a coldness to his demeanor. His lips were thin and chapped and he held his hands tightly in his lap. There was something warm hiding under the surface, however, shining through his eyes on that first day they met. He had pulled his backpack into his lap, quietly offering his seat to Myungjun despite there being several others available. Myungjun offered a smile. Though he didn’t receive one in return, he saw warmth in the eyes of his winter boy.

Before he even knew his name, his winter boy brought him a gift. Myungjun was handed a sketchbook before the other left the bus. As the bus began to roll forward again, Myungjun sitting alone now, he flipped through the sketchbook. Every page was packed with sketches, some in color but most just in pencil. At the bottom of every page was a date beginning with the day Myungjun had first met his winter boy. 

The last page was void of any drawings. In place of the sure lines and deep shading was a poem, Myungjun’s name scrawled at the top. Had he told his bus seat partner his name before? He must have, or else someone had boarded the bus and called out Myungjun’s name once or twice since they met. Myungjun read the poem carefully, clutching the sides of the sketchbook as if someone was going to rip it from his hands. At the bottom of the page was another name, this one short and written only slightly neater than the one at the top.  _Bin._

As they sat together the next day, knees knocking as the bus passed over a particularly heavy bump, Bin’s stomach growled. Myungjun didn’t hesitate. He dug into his bag and slipped a hand into what was supposed to be his lunch. Bin stared at the bag of chips, at Myungjun, then at the chips again before taking them quietly. He only ate a few before his stop arrived. Then, quietly, before turning away from their shared seat, Bin whispered a thanks.

There was a week where Myungjun didn’t see Bin. His heart clenched in his chest each day when he saw the empty seat where Bin would usually be waiting for him. Myungjun stared at the two lunches in his bag as the bus rolled along. He had started making lunches for Bin, despite their brief conversations, or maybe because their conversations were so brief? Myungjun wanted to know this winter boy, this boy as cold as the air outside with hands that were steady and eyes that saw more than anybody else did. Myungjun wanted to know him, so he left the bus where Bin usually did and he waited to see him. Bin never did show up, but Myungjun left the lunch on the seat of the stop in hopes that he would know he had been there.

When Bin was on the bus again, his right hand and arm were encased in a cast. His eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, thin lips chapped as he pressed close to the window of the bus. Myungjun offered Bin the lunch he always brought. Rather than take it, Bin stared at him. He broke the silence with a voice strained by worry.

“They said I might never be able to use my hand properly again.”

Bin had taken the lunch and left before Myungjun could form a response.

After that day, Myungjun began to learn. Bin was an artist, a skilled one, but that he already knew. He learned Bin sold his art for profit, to survive. He learned Bin’s art was featured at galleries across the city. He learned Bin had a younger sister and loving parents and a cat named Yoo back home. He learned Bin went to his studio every morning. He learned Bin had been hit when crossing the road, the bones of his hand, wrist, and forearm so broken that the doctors had almost considered removing his arm entirely to avoid complications or infection.

And as the months went on, Myungjun grew to become a source of comfort for Bin and his struggles. With no experience, no degree, and no way into a company through a friend, he had trouble finding a job. And then, after having met Myungjun on the bus through spring and summer, Bin missed the first day of autumn. He’d warned Myungjun this might happen. His hand wasn’t healing as it was supposed to. He couldn’t create art for the same buyers anymore. He would have to cut expenses somewhere to afford eating, and traveling to his studio each and every day would be the first expense he would cut. He told Myungjun where to find him, and so he did.

Bin met him at the door of his apartment in tattered jeans and a shirt so big it fell off one shoulder. Fresh paint stained his clothes and he held a brush in an awkward grip in his left hand. His hair was mused, shoved up off his forehead and sticking out on the sides. There was passion in his eyes when he opened the door that softened the longer the looked at Myungjun.

“You came,” he breathed, hand dropping from the door.

Myungjun nodded. “I promised you I would find you.”

Helping his winter boy wasn’t easy. There were some days when he showed up after work and Bin would be lying on the floor with shaky circles and squares drawn on a large sheet of paper before him. His right hand shook no matter what he did, and Myungjun held onto him as he cried, cradling his broken hand against his chest. Myungjun was there every day with his winter boy. He watched from the side as Bin’s lines grew stronger, cleaner. He watched as winter swirled in Bin’s eyes, determined and fierce as the breezes that turned Myungjun’s nose red. 

When Bin sold a painting again, closing his apartment door as the patron left with the canvas decorated with abstract daffodils, he turned to Myungjun with tears in his eyes. He grabbed Myungjun with a shaky hand, pressing them together while the winter inside him crashed with Myungjun’s summer. And as they lay basking in each other after, Bin brushed the hair from Myungjun’s forehead with his shaking hand and sighed.

“You saved me,” Bin whispered, planting a kiss on Myungjun’s forehead.

Myungjun shook his head. “You saved yourself. You never would have given up. That’s the winter in you, stubborn and determined.”

Bin laughed and pressed into Myungjun’s side. “The winter in me?”

Myungjun nodded seriously. It was Bin’s winter that had saved him. The same winter that made his eyes glaze over late at night was the same winter that drove him into fits of passion early in the morning. The winter inside him turned blank canvases into wonderlands of beautiful colors. Myungjun’s winter boy had conquered his winter and given into it. His winter boy had survived.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhhhhhh myungbin week begins. Did you like this one? Hopefully it wasn't hard to follow~


End file.
